bar mitzvah

Last week's episode of Big Love received more hype than any other show this season for one simple reason. The Church of Latter-Day-Saints (LDS) was protesting – in advance – the HBO drama depicting a secret church ritual. The church felt that the producers had gone too far by showing a sacred ceremony that was not meant to be revealed to those who are not members of the faith. While I respect their desire to protect their traditions, I think they should have waited till the show aired, because now that I've seen it, my attitude is simply this, "No big deal."

The bar mitzvah is a Jewish rite of passage, the time in a boy's life when he becomes a man -- symbolically -- by reading from the Torah. When a girl does the ritual, it's called a bat mitzvah. I mention all this because in TV, the bar/bat mitzvah has been the catalyst for some wonderful episodes, mostly on sitcoms.

The Simpsons celebrated Krusty the Klown's bar mitzvah in the episode "Today I Am A Klown," which was a variation on one of the all-time great sitcom bar mitzvahs of all time: the episode "Buddy Sorrell, Man and Boy," on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Square Pegs shared "Muffy's Bat Mitzvah" with viewers, and this past season, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David used his friend Jeff Greene's daughter Sammi's bat mitzvah to announce that he never put a gerbil up his butt.